I knew that the days, weeks, months and years stretching ahead of me weren’t going to be easy. There would be times when I would feel stressed, depressed and insecure and at those times I knew that niggling temptation would return and I’d think about taking something to deaden the pain, to kill the senses.
That had been why I’d fallen for heroin in the first place. It had been loneliness and hopelessness that had driven me into its arms. But now I was determined that wasn’t going to happen again. Life wasn’t perfect, far from it. But it was a million times better than it had been when I’d formed my addiction. Back then I couldn’t see beyond the next hit. Now I felt like I could see a way forward. I knew that I could soldier on.
From that day onwards, each time I felt myself weakening I told myself: ‘hold on, no, I’m not sleeping rough, I’m not alone, it’s not hopeless. I don’t need it.’
I carried on seeing a counsellor for a while, but soon I didn’t need that either. A month or so after I’d taken my last tablet of subutex he signed me off.
‘I don’t need to see you again,’ he said as he ushered me out of the door. ‘Stay in touch, but good luck. And well done.’
And I am happy to say I have not seen or heard from him since.
Chapter 9
Bob’s Big Night Out
As we walked south across the Thames at Waterloo Bridge, the lights of the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye were blazing bright in the late November night sky and the pavement was busy with people. Most were heading in the same direction, away from the West End and the City towards the commuter trains of Waterloo station. Some were weary looking office workers, shuffling home from a late night at work, others were in a jollier mood after a night out in the West End.
It was approaching 10.30pm, the end of their day. For me and Bob, on the other hand, it was the beginning of what promised to be a very, very long night.
I’d been persuaded by The Big Issue to take part in a new event that they were staging. I had first read about it in the magazine a few months earlier. It was called the ‘The Big Night Out’ and had been planned to coincide with the 18th birthday of the magazine. With that in mind, some bright spark had decided it would be a good idea to organise an 18 mile walk through the streets of London in the middle of the night.
The idea was that ordinary people could walk through the deserted city between 10pm and 7am with a group of The Big Issue vendors so that they could learn a little about the reality of living rough and sleeping on the streets. The adverts in the magazine called it ‘a fantastic opportunity to join other like-minded people who have a sense of adventure and a desire to help empower homeless and vulnerable people across the UK’. We hadn’t even finished the walk to the start of the event, but I was already beginning to wonder whether it was an adventure too far for me and Bob, especially given the problems I’d had with my leg. It was a bitterly cold night – and getting colder by the minute.
I’d made the decision to take part for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, it was a chance to earn a few extra pounds. Every vendor that took part in the walk was eligible for 25 to 30 free copies of The Big Issue. That meant that I could earn about £60 potentially. Beyond that, however, I saw it as an opportunity to talk to people about the magazine and the lives of the people who sold it.
Despite the ups and downs I’d had with the company, I was still a believer in its mission. It was, without question, the salvation for many people who lived on the streets. It had certainly helped give me direction and purpose – not to mention enough money to keep the wolf from the door – along the way.
We were meeting at the IMAX cinema at the Bullring roundabout on the south side of Waterloo Bridge. It was a fitting location. Not so long ago, the roundabout – well, more specifically the labyrinth of concrete, subterranean walkways underneath it – had been home to the shanty town that Londoners knew as Cardboard City. During the 1980s and early 1990s, it had become a home for more than 200 ‘rough sleepers’ as the social workers called us. A lot of those who hung out there were transient junkies and alcoholics but many created homes for themselves from wooden pallets and cardboard boxes. Some even had living rooms and bedrooms with mattresses. It had been a haven, but not necessarily a safe one, for 15 years. I’d stayed there briefly during its final days, at the end of 1997 and early 1998, when everyone was evicted to make way for the IMAX cinema.
My memories of the place were sketchy, but when I walked into the IMAX I saw the organisers of the walk had created a little picture exhibition on the history of Cardboard City. With Bob on my shoulder, I scanned the grainy black and white images for faces that I recognised. As it turned out, I was looking in the wrong place.
‘Hello, James,’ a female voice said behind me. I recognised it straight away.
‘Hello, Billie,’ I said.
Back around the year 2000, when my life was at its lowest ebb, Billie and I had become friendly, helping each other out and keeping each other company. We hadn’t met until after the demise of Cardboard City and had huddled up against the cold together at the cold-weather shelters that charities like Centrepoint and St Mungo’s used to put up during the winter months.
It turned out that Billie had turned her life around too. She’d had an epiphany one night when she was sleeping rough in central London and was disturbed from her sleep by a Big Issue seller. At first she’d been annoyed at being woken up by him. She hadn’t even known what the magazine was. But she’d looked at it then and grasped the idea. She had then rebuilt her life and, a decade later, was now a ‘poster child’ for The Big Issue Foundation.
We reminisced about the bad old days over a cup of tea.
‘Remember that pop-up at Admiralty Arch during that really snowy winter?’ she said.
‘Yeah, what year was that? 1999 or 2000 or 2001?’ I said.
‘Can’t remember. Those days are all a blur aren’t they?’ she said with a resigned shrug.
‘Yep. Still, we are here, which is more than can be said for some of the poor sods we were with then.’
Goodness knows how many of the people who had been on the streets with us had perished in the cold or from drugs or violence.
Billie was very committed to this walk.
‘It will give people an idea what we had to go through,’ she said. ‘They won’t be able to slip off home into a warm bed, they’ll have to stay out there with us.’
I wasn’t quite so sure. No one, no matter how well meaning, could really understand what it was like to live on the streets.
Billie, like me, had a companion these days. Hers was a lively Border Collie called Solo. She and Bob weighed each other up for a few minutes but then decided there was nothing to worry about.
Just before 10.30pm John Bird, the founder of The Big Issue arrived. I’d encountered him a few times and found him a charismatic character. As usual, he was good value, and fired everyone up with an inspiring little speech about the difference the magazine had made during its 18 years. By now 100 or more people had gathered there along with a couple of dozen vendors, co-ordinators and staff. We all filed out into the night, ready for John Bird to do the countdown.
‘Three, two, one,’ he shouted and then we were off.
‘Here we go, Bob,’ I said, making sure he was positioned comfortably on my shoulders.
For me it was a real journey into the unknown. On the one hand, I was really worried about whether my leg would stand up to 18 miles of wear and tear, but on the other I was just delighted to be off my crutches and walking normally again. It was such a relief not to be going ‘clonk, clonk, clonk’ down the road all the time, having to swing my legs in front of me every step of the way. So, as we set off on the first leg around the South Bank and across the Millennium Bridge, I told myself to simply enjoy it.